30 years of the Class 8 project at Edinburgh Steiner School. Now it is equivalent to a GCSE.
S3 pupils across the Capital are currently sitting mock exams ahead of their Nat 5s next academic year. Our equivalent, Class 8, is a very different picture.
The three pillars of the curriculum this year are the Class 8 play (Comedy of Errors), Independent Project and International Exchange with a sister Waldorf School in Germany or France, attending the Waldorf school there and living with a Coburg family. Formerly known as the 'Class 8 Project', these large-scale pieces of work have a long history in the school tracing back three decades to 1996. It now forms the backbone to the first module of the Integrative Education (IE) Certificate, equivalent to three GCSEs.
From the start of the academic year, the 13-14 year old pupils work on a subject of the pupils’ own choosing and done on their own steam over many months.
Part of this project involves an exhibition of their final projects - open to all to view; and an oral presentation of the process to an audience of peers, parents and teachers. Class 8 presented these on Thursday and Friday evening to an audience; and talked about their projects to visiting Class cohorts from across the school, as well as parents, the public and an Education Scotland visitor - who was deeply impressed.
The Independent Project can gain the pupil an IE Award. This can be built on in the Upper School by undertaking two more IE Modules: Creative Thinking Skills and Personal & Social Learning Skills. Since 2019, they have offered our pupils an alternative educational passport to summative exam assessment; more commonly studied alongside an exam diet of Nat 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers in Classes 9-12 (See Qualifications, Exams & Careers Handbook)
More amazingly, all of the pupils are a whole year younger than the specified age for this qualification and level of study, such is their capacity for focused, self-directed activity.
